Pizzeria Luigi in San Diego, CA

[PizzaEater101]

Peter, please do move this to the NY Pizza board.  I'd love to see the progress on a reverse engineering project of this great pizza.

Scott123, I did not know that Crystal Geyser is from California.  There are so many waters in a bottle now it's hard to keep track.  So let's say this is a hybrid of NY and CA pizza! Then again most people do think that water is not a big factor in pizza but for the sake of it I'll just think of this as a NY and CA hybrid since it's NY style with NY water.  Okay, okay, it's still NY pizza not really a hybrid. 

[scott123]

James, I brought up the NY water thing because, in the video, Luigi talks about how different water in different parts of Italy affects the pizza. At least I think that's what he says.  I'm pretty much one of those people who doesn't really believe in the importance of where the water comes from. I guess I do feel that harder water is a bit better than soft, but hard water is very common across the U.S.

This is about as NY Style as you can possibly get. I do things a little differently (such as a paler, softer crust) not because they're more authentically NY, but because it's what I prefer. Throughout the last 20 years, some NY places have done pale, soft crusts, while some do golden, brown and a bit crispy. Both have a place within the style.  Assuming he's doing a room temp ferment (which I think he is), this is actually a little more authentically NY than my pizza is, as I cold ferment, which is a bit outside the norm for NY pizzerias.

[PizzaEater101]

Scott, if I understand you, typically NY pizzerias use a room temp ferment, not a cold ferment?  I've never been to NYC so I of course never been to any pizza places there, therefore I don't know first hand what they use, cold or room temp.  I use a cold ferment.

[Pete-zza]

scott123,

Would you say that the bag of flour used in the video to make the dough is a 25-lb bag or something close to it but not 50 lb? I think the bag is between the table and the mixer at 1:16 in the video. Twenty-five pounds of flour and 65% hydration, plus the lesser amounts of ingredients used to make the dough (yeast, sugar and salt), would yield a dough batch weighing around 41-42 pounds by my estimation, or enough for roughly 38 pizzas.

Also, please take a look at the things that go on and off of that little table to the left of the mixer from about 0:52-1:34. In total, I see three dark colored bowls, one with ADY (at about 0:59-1:00 in the video) and two others with white ingredients in them. From the sequencing of the ingredients into the mixer bowl, starting with the water, yeast and sugar, can you tell me whether you think that the sugar is not in one of the bowls but that the two bowls both contain salt? In other words, the sugar is from someplace else not shown in the video?

Also, if the amount of ADY shown in the little bowl in the video is correct, then there can't be a lot of it. I mean maybe less than 0.20% (based on 25 pounds of flour). Pizzeria Luigi's hours are roughly from 10:30AM to 10:30PM, or a period of about 12 hours. With a small amount of yeast, the dough makers would have to get into work pretty early in the morning to give the dough enough time to ferment at room temperature to be usable at 10:30AM. That leads me to wonder whether the dough (most likely several batches) is actually made the evening before and fermented overnight, either at room temperature if the amount of ADY is really small or under cold fermentation if the amount of ADY is actually more than I estimate. Of course, some dough might also be made the next day if needed.

Peter

[Jet_deck]

Peter, while you were watching the little bowls on the table....
I was watching the auto refill on the flour. They start with one bag and end up with a whole bunch. (just above the floor to the right of the oven.)  Also clean dough boxes are above the sink, but there is a huge stack next to the oven.  Maybe they are warming up? or maybe they are enjoying a super warm room temp. proof.?

[norma427]

I don’t know if these pictures taken from my computer will help or not, but I do think the flour bags are less than 50 lbs.

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Peter, while you were watching the little bowls on the table....
I was watching the auto refill on the flour. They start with one bag and end up with a whole bunch. (just above the floor to the right of the oven.)  Also clean dough boxes are above the sink, but there is a huge stack next to the oven.  Maybe they are warming up? or maybe they are enjoying a super warm room temp. proof.?

Gene,

There may be some merit to what you say. I had noted the dough boxes starting at 0:27 in the video and noted that there were what appeared to be 13 of them stacked next to the stove (which I believe is an old Blodgett 1000 deck oven but without the name plates) but I didn't connect the dough boxes with the oven from the standpoint of the heat from the oven help raise the dough balls. This reminds me of when I visited DiFara's years ago and I asked Domenic how he warmed up the dough balls. He proceeded to bend down and to pull out a draw below the oven where dough balls were warming up pending use. I also noted in the Pizzeria Luigi video that the dough boxes are missing from next to the oven at 1:51 and then can clearly be seen again next to the oven at 2:26 in the video. However, that chronology may not mean much. If you look at the clock readings on the wall as the video progresses, they are not chronological. I see 10:25AM at 2:11 in the video, 12:20PM at 3:12, 12:10PM at 3:51 and 10.47AM at 4:14. I read somewhere that Guy spent a good part of the day at Pizzeria Luigi when the filming was done and no doubt there were many takes and much editing to produce the final episode for FoodNetwork. BTW, that episode was first shown on DDD on Nov. 17, 2008. It was later that the episode made its way to You Tube.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

On the matter of the flour bag size, I believe that the mixer that Luigi uses is a 60-quart Hobart series 600 mixer. I think it would be a struggle to use a 50-pound bag of flour in that mixer since that would mean over 80 pounds of dough. I might also mention that Pendleton sells many of its flours, including the Power flour, in 32 pound bags. That size would work with the 60-quart Hobart also.

Peter

[scott123]

Scott, if I understand you, typically NY pizzerias use a room temp ferment, not a cold ferment?  I've never been to NYC so I of course never been to any pizza places there, therefore I don't know first hand what they use, cold or room temp.  I use a cold ferment.

James, with the number of pizzas most NY pizzerias sell, the refrigerator/walk-in space necessary for cold fermentation becomes logistically difficult. In addition, from what I gather, the public's perception of the benefits of cold fermentation is really only a recent thing- maybe in the last 20 years.   I'm sure that a few bakers in France have been doing some form of extended/cold fermentation for centuries and that knowledge may have filtered to bakers in Italy, but as far as Italian American immigrants were concerned, I don't think many of them were privy to this advanced breadmaking skill.  Pizzeria owners are not cut from the same cloth as bakers.  Bakers generally have more training and more education and can grasp the concepts of why extended fermentation produces a better bread.  Although Dom Demarco/DiFaras have evolved into a Disnified hyper-caricature in recent years, the non high school graduate, barely English speaking pizzeria owner archetype holds some weight historically.  Dom Demarco doesn't understand cold fermentation, and, with the money he's making, he doesn't need to.  I'm sure, at some point, some pizzeria owner heard about cold fermentation (or maybe put some leftover dough in the fridge and liked the result), so I have no doubt that someone in the area is cold fermenting, but I'm sure it's not the norm.  You might find some places, that, because of workflow constraints, might make the dough the night before, and, because of the extended room temp fermentation, put out a better product, but if I had to guess as to how many pizzerias cold ferment, I'd be really surprised if it was more than 10%.

[scott123]

scott123,

Would you say that the bag of flour used in the video to make the dough is a 25-lb bag or something close to it but not 50 lb? I think the bag is between the table and the mixer at 1:16 in the video. Twenty-five pounds of flour and 65% hydration, plus the lesser amounts of ingredients used to make the dough (yeast, sugar and salt), would yield a dough batch weighing around 41-42 pounds by my estimation, or enough for roughly 38 pizzas.

Also, please take a look at the things that go on and off of that little table to the left of the mixer from about 0:52-1:34. In total, I see three dark colored bowls, one with ADY (at about 0:59-1:00 in the video) and two others with white ingredients in them. From the sequencing of the ingredients into the mixer bowl, starting with the water, yeast and sugar, can you tell me whether you think that the sugar is not in one of the bowls but that the two bowls both contain salt? In other words, the sugar is from someplace else not shown in the video?

Also, if the amount of ADY shown in the little bowl in the video is correct, then there can't be a lot of it. I mean maybe less than 0.20% (based on 25 pounds of flour). Pizzeria Luigi's hours are roughly from 10:30AM to 10:30PM, or a period of about 12 hours. With a small amount of yeast, the dough makers would have to get into work pretty early in the morning to give the dough enough time to ferment at room temperature to be usable at 10:30AM. That leads me to wonder whether the dough (most likely several batches) is actually made the evening before and fermented overnight, either at room temperature if the amount of ADY is really small or under cold fermentation if the amount of ADY is actually more than I estimate. Of course, some dough might also be made the next day if needed.

Peter

Peter, I applaud your inquisitiveness, but I'm not sure answers exist for all your questions  I defer to Gene's observations regarding the flour, and, as far as the bowls go, I watched the video a few times and can't make heads to tails out of it.   I think the bowl we see is salt, but can't say for certain.

If someone really is earnest in reverse engineering this, I think the only path towards that end is eyes on the ground. A bake time would be invaluable for revealing residual sugar content and, to a point, fermentation time.  This is one of those places where the mixer happens to be in the view of the public (I think), so if someone could watch them make the dough, that would help.  They also probably sell dough, so, under the guise of purchasing dough, one might be able to tease out of them when the dough is made and how long it's fermented in order to match their results at home "I love your pizza and want to try to make it for my friends... I see this dough ball you're selling me is cold, is the dough you use for pizza refrigerated as well?"

Or something to that effect 

[PizzaEater101]

Scott, what you say makes a lot of sense.  Conventional wisdom and logic of most people is that you make dough and you let it sit out at room temperature to rise.  That was my thinking too until a few years ago.  I only started getting into pizza making a few years ago.  I had before that made pizzas every once in awhile.  Maybe once every few years or so but I was watching Alton Brown on pizza making and he was talking about cold ferment and I thought that was a big revelation to me because I never heard of it.  I thought like many that you place the dough out to rise at room temp.  Well then over a year ago I started reading these discussions here at the PMF and registered and started asking questions.  I learned about baker's percentages here too.  When I first started to really get into pizza making, I did use Alton Brown's pizza recipe then I started to adjust his recipe and experimented with different measurements of ingredients.  I did then learn here of the baker's percentage which makes great sense and went on from there to experiment with the percentages. 

Back to warm rise.  I know Jackie Tran, who is really Chau, told me that he has done both cold and warm and gets good results from both.  I'm thinking of trying a warm room temp rise to see how it goes.  There are plenty of discussions here on room temp rises, therefore, I must go and read them and give it a try.   So I see your point Scott that many pizza operators are not really bread bakers but pizza makers only and bread baking is more involved and a lot more knowledge and education goes into it than pizza, which means the common pizza maker might no know about cold fermentation just as I didn't until a few years ago.    Also as you said cold storage space might be lacking so maybe room temp rises might be more practical.   Also, I'm sure if the toppings are good and the sauce and the dough is decent, even if a warm rise is used, then the pizza eating public might not notice, or won't be so discriminating.   

I might try a warm rise soon enough and see what happens.


Thanks

[chickenparm]

James,

I have done warm risen doughs and they work just fine.I notice the crust sometimes lack a little flavor compared to my longer,cold risen dough,but as you said,most of the public will never notice.Only you or I
will.

 

[Pete-zza]

One of the things that has puzzled me a lot recently about the Luigi video is the amount of yeast used by Luigi to make his dough, especially in relation to the type of fermentation used by Luigi as discussed, but not in great detail, in the video. Initially, I came to the conclusion that the amount of yeast was very small. I came to that conclusion from the video at 1:00, where a small amount of yeast, maybe a tablespoon, is shown in a small bowl. The notion of using a small amount of yeast in a commercial pizza operation did not initially seem to make a lot of sense to me, but based on Gene's suggestion that keeping the dough near the oven might be material, I felt that I could make out a case for a long room temperature fermentation of many hours if the dough balls were held in a warm place. I had done this on several occasions in my home environment and while that approach might not be a common one, I could see the potential for such a method to work in a commercial environment.

In order to explore the possibility of the Luigi dough balls being warmed by the heat outside of the oven, I PMd a couple of our members who work professionally with deck ovens and asked what a typical temperature would be outside of the oven to the side. In the course of one such exchange, I was told that my estimate of the amount of yeast was far off, based on what the video shows at 1:09 where the yeast is actually added to the mixer bowl. I could see that there was more than about a tablespoon of yeast, but I couldn't tell at that point why my estimate was off. This prompted me to go back to 1:00 in the video to see if there was anything there to explain why my estimate was off, and by so much. It was then that it hit me that there is a second small bowl on the table near the mixer, in front of the bowl of yeast that I had originally studied. However, the second bowl is partially obscured by what appears to be the water container. I had initially seen the second bowl but thought that it was one of the bowls that held the salt. I now believe that the obscured bowl also contains yeast--maybe almost enough to fill that bowl. That would raise the total amount of yeast from the two yeast bowls to a level that would allow the dough to be fermented at room temperature for a reasonably short period before using, much like an emergency dough but perhaps with a somewhat longer fermentation period. That notion also seems to square with the exchange that Guy had with Luigi as to when the dough balls could be used to make pizzas (for the exchange, see the last paragraph of Reply 16 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,14928.msg150322.html#msg150322). I estimate that maybe 0.70-0.80% ADY might be a good starting point.

Although I think that Luigi does use room temperature fermentation, I think that I can also make out a case of cold fermentation using the larger amount of yeast but being limited to perhaps one day of cold fermentation. Such a dough might even be better than one fermented for only a few hours at room temperature. It would be easy enough for someone to try both approaches to see which might be the one used by Luigi and also to determine whether one method is materially better than the other. I might also add that I estimated the amount of salt used in Luigi's dough, based on a flour weight of 25 pounds (400 ounces), to be around 1.50-1.60%. To come up with this number, I assumed two small bowls of salt, as previously discussed, and I used a bowl with a similar size and shape to the bowls shown in the video to do some salt weighings. As previously noted, both scott123 and I felt that the hydration of Luigi's dough, using the Pendleton Power flour, to be around 65%. For the sugar, which Luigi says he adds to help get the yeast going, I would use something like 0.15% to start. For a thickness factor, I would use 18/(3.14159 x 9 x 9) = 0.0707 if one is interested in making a different size pizza than the 18" pizzas made by Luigi.

Peter

[Essen1]

Peter,

In regards to Pendleton's Power flour, their website stated that it is designed for long fermentation/retardation periods.

http://www.pfmills.com/power-flour-products-1.php

Now, that stands in contrast with my local pizza guy around the corner from our business, who uses the same flour but for same day doughs.

[Pete-zza]

Mike,

It is quite common for pizza operators to use a particular flour to make both long, cold fermented doughs and short term, room temperature doughs to be used the same day. Sometimes the same-day dough is an emergency type dough to be used in the event something happens to the regular dough, including running out of the regular dough. The same dough formulation is used except that the water will usually be warmer and more yeast is used for the emergency dough. I have also often observed that there can be disconnects between what the miller states as suggested end uses for their flours and how they are actually used by bakers and pizza operators.

Your link to the Power flour also raises an unrelated point that I previously missed. Specifically, the bleached version of the Power flour comes only in a 30-pound bag. There is no way of knowing from the Luigi video whether he is using the bleached or unbleached version. If he is using the bleached version, then the dough batch might have a weight of close to 50 pounds (assuming a hydration value of 65%). For a 25-pound bag of the Power flour, the corresponding dough batch weight is about 42 pounds, and for a 32-pound bag of the Power flour, the corresponding dough batch size is about 53 pounds. I believe that Luigi is using a Hobart mixer with a 60-quart bowl. Tom Lehmann recommends that one not use more than 40 pounds of flour with a 60-quart bowl. That amount can yield a dough batch weight of around 60 pounds. Looking at the Luigi video, for example, at 1:56, it is hard for me to say how much dough is actually in the bowl, but whatever amount of flour was used pretty much filled up the bowl (with a couple inches to spare) when it was plopped on top of the water and other ingredients in the bowl (see 1:43 in the video). Whatever the final weight, clearly Guy wasn't going to stand idly by and let a little guy like Luigi hoist the bowl up onto the table all by himself so he helped Luigi carry the bowl to the table.

For someone wishing to attempt a replication of Luigi's dough, I think I would use the same baker's percents as previously recited. Not knowing the exact size bags of the Power flour Luigi is using may require some tweaking of baker's percents down the line but such changes would be normal and are likely to vary in any event from one setting to another.

For those who are interested, a while back one of our members started a thread on the Pendleton flours at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13830.msg138874.html#msg138874. Another member reported that he preferred the Pendleton Pizza Blend to the Power high gluten flour for the NY style.

Peter

[Essen1]

Peter,

That makes sense. I gotta ask my pizza guy when he makes his doughs, in the evening with an overnight fermentation or in the mornings but if I remember correctly he said once that he makes it in the morning.

Anyway, I just had a crazy idea, well maybe it isn't really that nuts but I know the mixer in the video is visible in some frames. Now, if we'd know the make and model, probably a Hobart, we could perhaps figure out the size of the bowl. That would give us a much better idea on the hydration given the amount of water that's being poured into the bowl in relation to the flour.

Just thinking out loud here...

[Pete-zza]

Mike,

I spent a lot of time trying to nail down the specific mixer that Luigi is using. I think that it is a Hobart 600 series planetary mixer but that series is no longer sold new by Hobart to the best of my knowledge. But there are a ton of used 600 series mixers out there, at eBay and sold by various companies that specialize in used mixers, and they come in all kinds of configurations. I also looked for mixer bowls and dimensions but I did not find that information. If I had to guess, I would say that the mixer bowl that is shown in the video was perhaps brand new--nice and shiny without a scratch on it. That would come across more impressively in the video than using an old beat up bowl.

Unfortunately, I am not much good at estimating things beyond a single dough ball level.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

Mike,

This is a Hobart P660 mixer with a 60-quart bowl that looks close. The link is at http://www.basequipment.com/Used-Hobart-P660-60-qt-Pizza-Dough-Mixer-w-Bowl-p/4543.htm. Another such mixer with the same colors as Luigi uses, but without the bowl, can be seen at eBay at http://www.ebay.com/itm/Used-Hobart-P660-60-Qt-Pizza-Dough-Mixer-/360371073309?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item53e7ca311d.

Peter
 
 

[Essen1]

Peter,

I also looked at the Food Network's Luigi's recipe but it's in imperial measurements which really doesn't tell me much in terms of hydration.

Also, the scene where Luigi and Guy talk water you can see he uses only two of the large bottles because the white caps are missing. We sometimes buy those bottles for our store here and they hold a gallon each. So two gallons would come to 7.57 liters/kilograms or 7570 grams.

Let's assume he uses the 25 lb bag of flour that would be 11340 grams, rounded up, and would result in a hydration of 66.75%, or rounded up, 67%.

If, that is, my calculations were correct and Luigi actually does use the 25lb bag.